Also, I have been revisiting Second Life as a venue for scientific research [2]. I gave a lecture to the Embryo Physics course on 12/8 (Thursday). Topic: Cellular Reprogramming. Aside from some glitches [3] due to bandwidth issues, the talk went well. Pictures [4] from the venue can be seen below. The first picture is the meeting space, while the second is a picture of virtual horses (no kidding!) in a stable, and the third is a screenshot of my alternate avatar [5] presenting.

Notes and References:

[1] issue 12(12).

[2] this link is a photo-log of my forays into "virtual science".

[3] I did the entire lecture using text chat. Using a tablet PC, I was able to review the slides in the real world, and type (e.g. speak) to the slides being presented in Second Life.

[4] my avatar -- biodroid -- is in the foreground of the first two pictures.

[5] apparently, the "skins" of my robot were taking up too much bandwidth. I switched to a human form, but I still couldn't speak in-world.